Departure back to ''Empress of Ireland' - The Salvation Army Connection'
At 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, May 28th, in perfect weather, the sleek, two funnelled Canadian Pacific liner under the command of Lieutenant Henry George Kendall, of the Royal Navy Reserves, slipped her moorings at Quebec and nosed out into the St Lawrence estuary, bound for Liverpool.
The 'Empress of Ireland'
view full size image
On board were more than one thousand passengers, including the beloved Commissioner and Mrs. Rees, Colonel and Mrs. Maidment, with many other prominent Officers, Soldiers and friends, and the famous Territorial Staff Band.
view full size image
Colonel Maidment and Commissioner Rees in pensive mood as the Empress prepares for departure
view full size image
Canadian Staff Band
The last "Good-bye" and "God bless you!" had been said; the last embrace had been bestowed; the last "All ashore that's going ashore" had been called out; the last home-stayer had regretfully hurried down the gangplank; and then, while hands, hats and handkerchiefs were waved, with the Staff Band playing "God be with you till we meet again," distance between the Empress and the land grew wider.
Amongst the crowds on the second class deck, the Staff Band formed a circle and began to play. Colonel Maidment is clearly visible by his hat.
view full size image
Major Gideon Miller was probably the last Salvationist to leave the doomed ship. As Property Secretary he had discussed last-minute affairs with the Commissioner in his cabin. He walked lightheartedly down the gangplank as the Staff Band played. Not many hours later, with Brigadier F. Turner, he was identifying bodies by the unsteady light of a smoky lamp in a wharfside coalshed at Rimouski.
The shute to the second class deck - up which a continuous line of men had just finished running up and down with mail bags.
In the centre of the picture can be seen:
Captain Stanley Bigland (snare drummer)
Brother Ernest Evans (monster bass)
Ernest Green
Teddy Grey (the "Star" artist)
view full size image
On board ship, the late afternoon had been filled with music and song. Ensign "Olie" Mardall had led an impromptu program, and Adjutant Harry Green had entertained the passengers with brilliant pianoforte selections. By 11:30 p.m. nearly all the Salvationists had retired.
Outside, fogs were sweeping up the river from the bleak coasts of Labrador. Information had reached the liner that there were also forest fires in Quebec which were throwing smoke blankets over the St. Lawrence. In a comprehensive book entitled "The Tragic Story of the Empress of Ireland," Logan Marshall gives the following detailed account of events leading up to the collision:
"Captain Kendall stopped his ship at Rimouski, a town of 2,000 inhabitants on the New Brunswick shore, about 180 miles north-east of Quebec, as the channel flows. It is a station, the last outpost of the Dominion mail service. Bags of mail were loaded aboard, and the Empress moved steadily out into the broad river. At that point the St. Lawrence, leading into the inland sea, which is the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is thirty miles wide. The channel runs about ten miles from the New Brunswick shore and about twenty miles from the Quebec shore.
At midnight the tide was running in strongly. The weather was cold and there was a piercing sting to the air. The mercury had fallen to just about the freezing point. Few passengers were stirring after midnight. It was too cold on deck to make late vigils pleasurable.
At half past one o'clock, Friday morning, the Empress reached Father Point, where the pilot was dropped. The vessel then proceeded at full speed. After passing the Cock Point gas buoy, Captain Kendall sighted the Norwegian collier Storstad. At that time a slight fog bank could be seen approaching from the land, and the Captain realized it was going to pass between the Storstad, which was then about two miles away, and his own vessel. Then the fog came and the Storstad's lights disappeared."
Fog signals were exchanged, but these were misunderstood, and at about 2 o'clock the great hull of the Storstad suddenly loomed out of the Stygian darkness, and with shattering force the steel-sheathed bow of the collier crashed into the side of the Empress, tearing the ship from middle to the screw, and making the water-tight bulkheads useless.
The vessel went down in fourteen minutes.
|